Hush Little Baby

It's currently 2:04 a.m. If I were a smoker, I'd be lighting it up. If I were a drinker, I'd be pouring myself a tall one. However, I'm none of these things. I am a mom trying to let her seven month old cry it out. It's been going on for about twenty minutes now. Her screaming. I have no idea how long she will cry. We've never really let her cry that long before. The past few nights she's been up three times to nurse. Yes that's right. She's been up three times in the middle of the night to nurse. It's killing us. As my husband says, instead of going forwards, we're going backwards with her sleeping. So tonight's the night. We're done. It's for the sake of sanity. Survival really. We can no longer wake up three times in the middle of the night and expected to be bright, happy, cheery people the next day. It is physically impossible. Our pediatrician said cut her off. She's getting no nutritional value from it. I feel like yelling under the door, 'this is not our fault.. your doctor told us to do it... so please.. don't be mad at us.. don't hate us.. it's for your (our) own good... really (i think).' But I'm not sure that would do much good. She'd probably be like, 'whatever lady, just get in here.' I just don't know why this is so hard to do with Presley. With Brooks, it was no big deal. We were like, you're done waking up in the middle of the night.. and that was it. He cried a few nights for a little bit and then he was good to go. Snoozing all the way through. We didn't think twice. Apparently, we had tougher skin. It was tough love and that was fine. But with Presley, this is really hard. Maybe it's because she's our last.. maybe I've gone soft. Maybe it's because we live in a different house now and it seems like her screams are on an intercom system that carries through the entire house at full blast. I'm not really sure. I just keep picturing her sweet little face crying, crying, crying wondering why I've not come to rescue her. 'Mom, what's the deal. What in the world did I do? Why are you being so mean to me?' I'm just sure those things are going through her mind right now. Maybe I'll go drive around... grab an ice tea, maybe a magazine, some peanut M&M's. I could just sit in the garage and hang out. I know I couldn't hear her in there. There would be no risk of me caving.. flinging open the door to rush in and pick up my sweet baby. Oh wait, she's calming down. Maybe this is our big break. Nope, she's firing up again. Ok, now she's calm. I hear her little voice getting sleepy. I had to read my Bible earlier tonight to stay strong.. to prep for this. I need divine intervention in a big, bad way. Hummm, I think she might be asleep now. Nope, I just heard her again. But I think she's tapering. It's now been quiet for about three minutes. Oh Lord. Please, let this be it. Ok, we've made it a few more minutes. Not a peep. The knot in my stomach is slowly going away. I did it. She did it. It's 2:41.